The Disarmers Dexterities Examined, Chapter 7 · Section 5
SECT. V.
Retaining Apostolical Government, one indication that we are no Schismaticks. Vindication of my method. The one sort of Schism with the Romanists. Altare contra altare, Sch…sm: yet all Schism consists not in that. The Primate in each Church. The Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes, wherein it consists. Of Liturgies and Ceremonies, and Discipline. Of Sacriledge. Of the Mass. Of the Popes Monarchy, and Festivals.
IN his third Sect. his first dish, or …est (for it is with the Stationer under one, with the Author under the other of these notions) is raised out of the view of my method again, which when all is done, is as exact, as he could have taught it to be; That dividing from our Ecclesiastical Superiors was fitly set for a first kinde of Schism, that against subordination, and that casting off all government quite, was a species of another kinde, by way at least of reduction, as the institutions of Christ and his Apostles, are reducible to the faith of Christ, hath been vindicated already; And all that is now behinde to be justified in this place, is, that external communion being one part of unity, and the offences against that one part of schism, our retaining and living regularly under that form of Government, under which the Apostles founded Ecclesiastical Assemblies, is one evidence of our not being guilty of schism against external Communion. And to this purpose what proofs can be needful, when it is once considered, that external Communion is nothing else but foreign …oyning regularly in the Ecclesiastical Assemblies, and that that is stiled being foreign within the altar, in Ignatiu's phrase, in communion external with all those whom God hath set over us, and with all those that keep close to them, all others that live out of this, being, as S. W. told us even now, a multitude, but not a Church. And indeed when the rulers of the Church are the Masters and Ministers of the Assemblies, who have the ordering and transacting of all in them, what possibility is there of considering external communion, without an explicite consideration of this head, the forme of Government appointed by Christ, and the regular living under it.
To this I shall only add, that if there had been any infirmity in my method, and if that were the very default, which he would have reprehended, the reverting desultorily to the matter of Government, S. W. would have been the unfittest person in the world to complain of it, or upon this one score of the immethodicalness of my process, to feast his neighbours as he doth with the news of my preaching in a wilderness; For certainly none can be more guilty of it in the very kinde, than he, for the denying the Popes Supremacy being his schism of schisms, as the denying his Infallibility is his heresie of heresies, 'tis consequent and certain, that whensoever he comes to distribute schism into its parts, Denying the Popes Supremacy must be the root and branch in every one of them. Thus very unsuitable it is to S. W. his condition, to blame other mens methods, who if he were never so subtle an artist or methodist, could n…t serve his rules and his hypothesis at once, but must be fain to divide his theme (Schism) as the keen stomack did his short Commons, or the blunt Friar his text, into one bit, or part. For that is the breviat of the Romanists divinity, that all that live in obedience to the Bishop of Rome are Catholick, and all that do not, schismatical.
But he tels us next, that Arians and other hereticks have after their breaking from the Church of God retein'd the authority of their own Bishops] I answer, that when heresie and sch…sm went together, and the Bishops themselves were not the ring-leaders of it (as among the Arians it was) there generally the hereticks renounced the authority of their own Bishops, and set up others against them, and so erected altar against altar, i. e. Bishop against Bishop, the ordinary stile of schismaticks in the Fathers, and notorious in the instance of the Donatists. But then 2. I grant that reteining the authority of their Bishops, is not, being taken alone, any certain argument, or evidence of not being schismaticks, and therefore I took it in consort with others, and made it but one of six indications, on our side, for our not being guilty of this one branch of schism, against external Communion; and that I hope was just as S. W. would have directed me. This being still one branch of schism in them that are guilty of it, though all schism do not consist in this. Which also may be useful advertisement to him, if he please, and minde him, that the adhering to the authority of the Bishop of Rome is no certain defensative against schism, and that there may be other schismaticks besides those, which are either by, or without their own default or consent, divided and separated from that See.
What he here adds of my not telling him of the main hinge of our Churches Government, which is of the King being it's head and supreme in Ecclesiastical matters] is a special device, For I ask, doth he beleeve the King to be in any Nation head of the Church? If he doth not, why am I to be rebuked, for not putting him into my scheme, and so for not telling him of it? I acknowledge indeed that I do not tell him of it, and that with very good reason, because in my poor opinion, the King makes no part in our Hierarchie, the Primate of each Nation is he, whom, according to the Apostlick Canon, and that of Antioch, we acknowledge. The Apostolick Canon is express.foreign. foreign the Bi…hops in every Nation ought to know the fi…st or Primate among them, and to account him as their head; and the Canon of Antioch is as full, foreign.foreign, the Bishops in every Province must know the Bishop which presides in the Metropolis, and do nothing of common concernment without him. As for the King, we know the title and power which by our doctrine belongs to him, viz. to be Supreme over all persons in all causes whatsoever. That he is Supreme the S…ripture tels us in many places, and particularly S. Peter, and how farr this Supremacy extends in respect of Persons, T. 3. p. 189. p. l. 17.the F…thers of the Church have made no scruple to affirme, without excepting of any; so Saint Chrysostom on Rom. 13.1. foreign, The precept of subjection to Kings as Supreme, belongs to all, both to Priest and Monks, and not to seculars alone, and, foreign, though thou be an Apostle, an Evangelist, a Prophet, or whosoever, thou art under this precept of obedience to the higher powers. And indeed the matter is clear, that if as men we are born Subjects, 'tis neither in the power of our baptism, which makes us of men Christians, nor of our Ordination, which makes us of Christians Priests, Bishops, Metropolitans, Primates, to rescind the obligation, and oath, under which we are born, to quit us in the least degree of our allegiance before incumbent on us. And as for persons, so for causes also, the Supremacy of the King is universally extended, the Church having it's foundation in the Kingdom, and not the Kingdom in the Church, and Christ having interposed no exemption in this kinde, save what the law of God and nature had alwayes supposed, that we must serve, obey, and fear God, more, and rather then men, (timendo Majestatem contemnere Majestatem, i. e. adhere still to the supreme) when there is a competition and unreconcileableness betwixt their commands. But when there is none, then subject and prostrate all our obedience before him, who bears Gods image and superscription, being indeed his vicarius or proxy, commissionated by him. From whence it is visible what causes they are wherein the Church or Ecolesiastical persons depend not on the Prince, what powers they have, which flow not from him, viz those to which their calling from God, or office to which he hath commissionated them, doth oblige them, and which they cannot omit without the same woe, under which S. Paul was obliged to preach the Gospel; Agreeably we know, these things the Bishops in this Nation have done in the name of G…d and as Ministers of his, and commissionated by him, in their own names, The Censures of the Church were never issued out, as the civil acts of judicature, in the name of the Prince, but after the example of S. Paul, 1 Cor. 5. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Bishop, as his Officer and Minister and Embassador. In a word the internal acts of the Ecclesiastical Function are those, wherein the Primate is under Christ, the chief in each Christian nation. But the external acts, or causes of the Church it self, such are all those, that in the discourse of schism have been attributed to him, are as regularly subjected to the Prince, as the foreign, whatsoever is most purely civil or secular.
When therefore he saith, we substitute the King instead of the Ecclesiastical head we rejected, i. e. the Pope, The meaning if it have any truth, must evidently be this, The Bishop of Rome having assumed a Primacy in this Kingdom, and usurped a transcendent uncanonical power over our Primate, such as neither Apostolick, Nicene, Ephesine, Antiochian, nor any other antient Canon afforded him, or gave him any ground to pretend to, contented not himself with this, but assumed as confidently the Supreme Regal power, as far as to Ecclesiastical causes and persons, in external things, such as no way belong'd to a Primate by the same ancient Canons, but were reserved as the Priviledges of Majesty, to every Christian Prince. Consequently at the return of each part of this usurped power to its due chanel again, that which really belong'd to the Ecclesiastical Primate, reverted to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and what as duly, and regularly belonged to the Supreme Monarch, returned to its proper seat of Ma…esty.
And thus, I hope, I have if not satisfied S. W. yet secured his seducible reader from being imposed on by him, in this his grand particular, which promised such flowrs to his Crown, such advantages to adorn his triumphs over us.
His next fling is at my method again, but they that have eyes in their heads, cannot choose but see, that they that acknowledge Episcopal, nay Papal Government, may yet not live regularly in obedience under it, and so that as the want of that obedience is a several branch of schism, so to secure our selves from being schismatical offendors against external communion, the obedience to, as well as acknowledgeing of our Lawfull Superiors, was to be mentioned in my defence.
In his answer to my third plea, as he calls it, many passages there are, before we finde the least motion toward truth, or earnest, or arguing: For that 1. all schismaticks meet at such appointed places as I spake of, viz. Churches, or 2. observe such set times, fasting or festival, the fasts and holy dayes of our Calender: thirdly, that Copes and Surplices are Sacramental: Fourthly, that we preach such doctrine as our first fore-fathers (i. e. the Apostles) sent us not to preach: Fiftly, that we imbue tender minds with tainted doctrine] are all equally fictions; and Sixtly, that our prayer and praises is almost all out of their Mass and breviarie, if, being taken out of the antient liturgies of the more Universal Church, it can yet be truly said to be taken from them, that have varied from the ancient form, yet sure it cannot be argumentative against us; for why must we that are blamed for receding from them, be blamed also for this act of not receding.
Seventhly, then, As for ceremonies, of which saith he, we accepted from the Primitive Church only what we thought convenient, the same authority that recommended them, recommending more to us] I answer, that 'tis sufficient that what we took from the Roman Church, was such as they had from the practice of the Primitive Church, no obligation lying on us from thence to adhere to that Roman order in all other ceremonies, which we finde not to be Primitive, or to observe every other rite, which the Primitives did: For as to those which we do retain, what need we own any other authority for retaining them, then that of the Primitive practice? and then why should the same, i. e. the Roman authority, from which we had them immediately, oblige us to receive all other that the Romanists use, but the Primitive Church did not use? and for those which the Primitive used, and we retain not, why are we more guilty therein than the Romanists are, who certainly do the same thing, either in the same, or other instances, retain not all ceremonies which the Primitive Church observed, witness the stan…ing, not kneeli…g in the service of God betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide, and on every Sunday in the year, which sure was of antient Primitive, but is not of Modern Rom…ne, any more than of Engl sh use, and so proclaims the liberty of the Churches in retaining or not retaining, i. e. of choosing and culling out some ceremonies that are most salubrious, without burthening the Church with the greater weight and number of all, that have at any time been used.
As for our discipline, which he saith is too weak to hold us together in unity, profest fallibility being, saith he, too weak for that] The answer is obvious, First, that pretension to infallibility is not discipline. Secondly, that the censures of the Church, which we are wont to understand by that phrase, are the same both with them and us, the weapons of our, as well as of their spiritual warfare, and the Apostle tells us, they are mighty through God, for the bringing down of strong holds, but with neither of us have that force, when sons of the Church rebel against, or cast off their Parents. And this is all that our experience tels us, that the censures have lost their force, since the Governors of the Church have been cast off, and I suppose the Church of Rome hath no fence against that; when any members of their Church renounce obedience to them, what force is there in respect of them, that do so, in all their thunderbolts?
In this place p. 257. after his answers to three particulars of the plea concerning our not being guilty of this schism against external Communion, here is a very excellent prize played; My fourth particular concerned all that under any of those three former heads, the Romanist requires us to add farther to that which we voluntarily receive. And before he will proceed to that fourth, he must once more look back and take a second survey of these three, like him that after once saying grace could not fall to his meat, till he had exercised his gifts in praising God better. And what was the designe of this? Why that in this review he might tell his reader one great mystery, which yet he had once revealed to him before, that D. H. who mentioned some things wherein he was no schismatick, omitted others wherein he was. But why did he not stay, till to the other three particulars these were added? The reason is evident, for then his exception, as far as there was any colour for it, had been prevented, the very next that follows, taking notice of the Principal, and of all that are material of those, which he saith are omitted.
And then what doth this special enterprize of his amount to? But this in effect, that D. H. having mentioned six things, he had yet gone through but three of them, which is most true, because S. W. at his welchmans baite, would needs stand still in the midst, when the very next step or line, had else certainly given him a view of the rest of them. And was not this a fair reason why he should thus glean after himself, review and pick over his clusters again, and minde his reader, beside those answers that were already given (and already proved to have no force in them) first that we had cast out the Popes authority, and secondly, had been guilty of Sacriledge, and again, denied obedience to their Churches, i. e. the Popes authority, and ruin'd religious houses, i. e. committed sacriledge; Where, as sacriledge is certainly (as hath been said long since) neither schism nor any branch or part of it (or if it were, the Romanists would finde good store of schismaticks among their own subjects) and as this is not the fault but the misery, not the guilt but the pest of our Church, so the other is particularly named, and spoken to by me, in the fourth particular, and can no more be said to be omitted by me, than the former three which he hath surveyed, might be said to be omitted, before he entred on the survey of them.
One thing indeed he mentions more, that we left out all the most sacred parts of their service books the Canon Missae, and what ever concern'd the heaven-propitiating sacrifice, and highest and soule-elevating act of religion; and again, that we took out of their Masse book only the slighter things which were enough to serve us to cry Lord, Lord.] From this I acknowledge to learn two things to be affirmed by S. W. first, that we which retain in our services the prayers to the holy blessed and glorious Trinity, but do not take in prayers to Saints and Angels, are by S. W. judged to retain only the slighter things. Secondly, that the sacramental partaking of the real sacrifice of Christs body and blood, commemorative of that sacrifice once offered upon the Cross, and applying to us the propitiation of that, if it be not yet farther, the same sacrifice offered now by the Priests, which was once offered on the Cross, and that by means of his stupendious transubstantiating the Elements into that very body (one of which S. Augustine tels us is a savage thing; and S. Chrysostome that what the Priest there doth, is rather foreign than foreign a commemorat…on of the sacrifice of Christ, than the sacrifice it self; and of the other, our reason assures us, that it implies many contradictions, and so impossibilities in it) is none of the most sacred parts, none of the soule-elevating acts of our religion. In all this I acknowledge we are not of S. W. his minde, nor have as yet discern'd in his temper any great effects of that soule-elevating act of religion, who yet I doubt not hath been at Mass in his dayes, and if our not opining with him in these particulars (to which our not practising is but consequent) must be schism after all, and we irremediably cast out from the Romanists peace and mercy, there is no help for it, that I know of, but by appealing to a more equal judge, then is our profest enemy in this matter.
At length he is perswaded to proceed to the fourth head, which was the consideration of the particulars, which the Romanist requires us, but we deny to receive, viz. the Popes Monarchick power over us, and the whole world, and the use of more ceremonies and festivals, of both which I affirmed that they were without precedent of the ancient Primitive Church, usurpations or impositions of the present Romanists. To these he hath nothing to say, but that the supremacy of the Pope was brought in 900. years agoe, (and they that now live were not alive then) proving it only from our granting of it, and that ceremonies and festivals are ind fferent things, which 'tis lawful for them to recommend to their Subjects.
To these I answer, First, that I said not of the Popes supremacy that it was an imposition of the present Romanists, but that that, and the other things mentioned, were usurpation or imposition of the present Romanist, and if it were usurpation (though of some former Popes before this last age) this will suffice to verifie my speech, and 'twas truly all that I meant by it, and he may have heard of him, that had a Legacy given him either of the black horse, or cow, and suing the executor first for one, then for the other of them, was twise non-suted, till he laid his plea exactly by the words of the will, either for one or other. The same is S. W. his portion at this time. Secondly, That we in no wise grant, that for 900. years the Pope hath been possest of the universal supremacy, nor indeed acknowledged to have it in this Island of ours, witness the treatise of schism C. 6. throughout. And therefore this must be better proved than by our concession, and so needs no refutation from me, but that of denying it. Thirdly, That if the Popes power over us, were usurped only, and so we none of his Legal Subjects, he may then retain and exercise his power of multiplying ceremonies and holy-days over his own subjects, without our being at all concern'd in the obligation to observe them. And so much for his third Section.